Day 9: Cameroon v Serbia, South Korea v Ghana, Brazil v Switzerland, and Portugal v Uruguay

A couple of days ago, while promoting their crunch final match, the United States Men's teams social media accounts posted their two nations flags, but on Iran's flag, they had removed the Islamic Republic crest. In the press conference on day 9, Carlos Quieroz, Irans coach was asked about that. The most telling part of his answer sums football up, he said:

"I was born in a place in Africa. Some of you know my background. You don't know what one simple ball can do for kids who sometimes for one or two days don't eat. They don't have nothing to dress. And when we stop our cars, we open the cars and we put one ball in those parks. And you cannot imagine the magic moment that happens in the faces of kids and from sadness they change in one fraction to a smile. This is our mission."

You don't know what one simple ball can do for kids. One simple ball.

Football can get so confused, so messy, so complex, when entwined with geopolitics and the struggles between peoples, their rights, their governments and other nations.

In 1980, after Iran's Islamic revolution the previous year, the US backed an invasion of the country by Saddam Hussein's Iraq. The subsequent 8 year war extolled a brutal cost on the Iranian people, with half a million dead or wounded.

So when the US and Iran met, ten years after the end of the war, at France 98, some were calling it “The most politically charged match in World Cup history”. The Iran coach at that time, Jalal Talebi, shares similarities to current Iran coach, Carlos Quieroz. Talebi grew up in Tehran, the city where the Dasht-e Kavir, the Great Salt desert meets the Alborz mountains, before the Mountains meet the Caspian sea. Kicking around on old rubber ball on those streets, Talebi's first World Cup memory was of 1966 and he idolised Bobby Charlton.

The US players had security detail on arrival in France, and the French FFF and FIFA played down potential threats. All the same, plain-clothed police officers were at US training sessions and in their hotel.

During the pre-game ceremony, each Iranian player presented their US counterparts with bouquets of flowers, and the two teams posed together in a combined photo.

“We are all people. We are not enemies..” said Talebi, “..we weren't there to fight. We were there to play sport”

When Iran scored two unanswered goals, they made history that day 24 years ago, it was Iran's first ever World Cup win. “The people in my country have never forgotten that night and how they danced in the streets until early morning” that was Talebi again.

And from the US perspective, Jeff Agoos said at the time: “We did more in 90 minutes than the politicians did in 20 years”.

Instead of heightening tensions, that game did, at least for a few years, bring the two nations closer together. Such is the power of football. This is why it makes no sense when people say, “stick to the football and leave politics out of it”. The game, the people playing it, the nations competing, and their trials and stories, are all woven together. From the a football game played in a brief truce, on Christmas day 1914, on no-man's-land between British and German forces, or the game which sparked a war between El Salvador and Honduras in 1970, to Quieroz's story of giving a football to a group of poor children who have nothing,...

Day 7: Tunisia v Australia, Poland v Saudi Arabia, France v Denmark and Argentina v Mexico

And Day 8: Japan v Costa Rica, Belgium v Morocco, Croatia v Canada, & Spain v Germany

Hypocrisy comes in as many shades as a rainbow flag. If you want an example of it, you would do well to find one better than Piers Morgan. On the 2nd June 2015 Piers tweeted: “Russia & Qatar must have their World cups removed. Both bids mired in sleaze & corruption via Blatter & his FIFA cronies”. A tweet which he has since deleted.

Piers has since taken a nice pay cheque to go and work in Qatar, he posted a photo of himself flying out to Qatar, his feet up, literally, on the furniture. And while doing so he has mocked the BBC for virtue-signalling. He also mocked the FA for the decision to not wear the One Love armband, “if you're going to virtue signal, at least have the guts to stick to your principles.”

For someone against virtue-signalling, Piers sure does a lot of it. Perhaps he was confused as to why the FA decided to scrap the armband, because he only deletes tweets he makes when he gets a big bag of Qatari money to do so.

Incidentally, Piers has also been, rightly, critical of Matt Hancock being on the TV show “I'm a Celebrity, get me out of here”, come on Piers, isn't it time we stop the virtue-signalling and just enjoy the competition? If only Matt Hancock had a big pile of money for Piers, ay?

Hypocrisy is a type of logical fallacy. And logical fallacies are useful to know, because logic can help us find the truth, and logical fallacies will take us away from it. When Gianni Infantino said: “I think for what we Europeans have been doing in the last 3,000 years, around the world, we should be apologising for the next 3,000 years before starting to give moral lessons to people.” As well as being factually inaccurate, he was making a logical fallacy based on hypocrisy.

Is it hypocritical of the UK to admonish Qatar for treatment of women, migrant workers and their LGBT+ community, if you consider the UK's enslavement and imperialist past? Or is it useful in a debate to turn the subject of the conversation upon your accuser, and make the story, not about 1000s of modern slaves dying building stadiums in a desert, but about the UK being hypocrites.

Is criticism of Qatar Islamaphobia? You'll be surprised to learn this is another logical fallacy known as the “Ad Hominem” argument. The modern world is full of logic, in the news, on social media, in parliaments and courts. If debate was a game logical fallacies would be fouls, but they only become own goals if you are able to call them out. I highly recommend reading about them.

On the morning of day 7 Saudi Arabia filled my twitter feed. There were rumours that after they had beaten Messi's Argentina, each player would receive a Mercedes. These rumours were of course ridiculous, they will be gifted a Rolls Royce.

Tensions between Qatar and Saudi Arabia feel like they're constantly simmering. Qatar is a tiny peninsula, Saudi Arabia is it's only land bridge. And Saudi Arabia, by comparison, is enormous. It doesn't take a genius to think that the Saudis might covet Qatar. Saudi Arabia is four times bigger than France, Qatar is smaller than Northern Ireland. And Qatar has 14% of all the world's natural gas: an already lucrative resource which has become vastly more expensive since Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

And as recently as five years ago Saudi Arabia planned...

Day 6: Wales v Iran, Qatar v Senegal, Netherlands v Ecuador and England v USA

Day six began with the most emotionally charged game of the Finals so far. Wales v Iran. There was not the nerves of the opening fixture for either side as they lined up for the national anthems. Both teams knew this was their best chance at picking up points and progressing to the next round.

This felt like the game with the most genuine supporters from both sides too. Wales red wall group of supporters belted out "Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau" – meaning Land of my Fathers, with a roar befitting of their reputation as a nation of singers. They sang with hope, determination, expectation. There were tears in the eyes with the emotion. Back home, a thousand schools were taking breaks from lessons so children could watch the game.

The word Welsh means foreigner or slave in Old English and was the name given to native Brits by the Anglo-Saxons invaders 1,500 years ago. There's been a lot of talk recently of a vote for Scottish independence, but listen to any interview with Michael Sheen and you'll wonder why the movement for Welsh independence isn't stronger.

The word Cymry means fellow-countrymen and Cymru means land of compatriots. Surely, if it is the will of the Cymry to be called by these names, as has been indicated before the tournament, then the English speaking world giving them that respect, is the least that can be done.

Onto Iran then. And we speculated yesterday that the arrest of Iranian footballer, Voria Ghafouri, was a warning to the Iran National team at the World Cup. Ghafouri is one of three high profile Iranian footballers arrested this year, joining Parviz Boroumand, former national team goalkeeper, as well as as unconfirmed reports of the arrest of 26 year old right back Amir Nasr Azadani.

There was no silent protest this time, the players sang the anthem and they didn't look happy to be doing it at all. It was a mumble at best. Meanwhile in the crowd the reaction to the images of the players singing heightened the feeling. Boos and jeers rose up with more fervour this match.

The camera gave us close ups of Iranian fans sobbing uncontrollably. Has there ever been national anthems like this? Normally there is a mix of some players singing, some not, often the veterans looking to get it over with and get the game going. This was quite the opposite, I've never seen anything like it, truly unforgettable.

Among the crowd a women, with makeup of red tears coming from her eyes, held up an Iranian t-shirt with MAHSA AMINI and 22 on the back, in memory of the 22 year old who's death in the custody of the morality police, was the catalyst which has sparked renewed protests across the country.

A man next to her held a t-shirt up with the slogan “WOMEN, LIFE, FREEDOM”. They were led away by security officers.

They were one of the few protesters that got into the stadium with their anti-regime messages. The process for passing through security at this game took longer than any game so far, with 1000s missing kick-off still waiting to get into the ground.

There are reports that Qatar officials are working to stop any anti-regime protests from the Iranian supporters. And the evidence all points to that.

The game itself was as passionate as the mood. For most of the game it was scoreless, but not without drama, the action, often end-to-end, was borne of two teams knowing th...